One of the problems I face with my alcoholism is that when I drink, I have a VERY short term memory. But a selective short term memory. Not selected by me, I might add – at least not consciously. And what makes it worse is that I get chatty when I’ve been drinking, and say a lot… and then forget I said it. Sometimes I remember something I said later but forget what I said earlier, if that makes sense. I seem to just forget things at random. Sometimes I wonder if I actually have a standard moving-parts hard drive for a brain and it doesn’t like being shaken, or maybe I just have bad RAM, who knows? Anyway, I’ve been drinking tonight (not that much yet, mind) so this could get interesting.
When I spend a night sober, all I do is lay in bed and look up Cracked.com articles on my phone occasionally rolling from the right to the left to plug the phone in so it doesn’t die and deprive me of my only human contact, then when it’s back up to 40% I roll back to the right because it’s more comfortable and I have roughly 25 minutes before I have to roll left again. Okay, so I also look up YouTube videos and read about upcoming video games and daydream about expensive electronics I’d like to own, too. But I somehow am not myself. Or maybe I am? Which is kind of sad… I hope one day that I can be the kind of person who can do a “night time” without alcohol. That being said, if I’m at work? Nothing changes and I feel fine. I’m doing my job and I feel perfectly normal! But when it comes to being at home, alone, at night… I get… bored. But more than bored. I get antsy. But this isn’t about ‘Sober Baden’, this is about ‘Drunk Baden’.
See the major difference between SB and DB (previously noted as Sober Baden and Drunk Baden) is that DB is far more willing to talk to anyone and everyone about his feelings and/or problems. And this, in itself, is a problem. He is chatty, sometimes but not usually aggressive, and just will say whatever comes to his head. SB can be this way, but only EVER in private company with someone he trusts. What I wonder is why? I mean, it’s always been this way with me, even as a teen. I don’t even know the number of times (which might be few, or might be many) that I’ve been way too honest with the wrong person because of alcohol.
When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I thought that I might maybe be bisexual. I don’t know why I thought that, because to this day I don’t remember ever actually being attracted to any man, and I’ve always been fascinated by women… for a time I even wanted to be one. Oh. Maybe that’s why? Anyway, at the time I had a really good friend and for the sake of confidence I will call him Grendel because as far as I know I’ve never actually met a Grendel. I also had a “good friend” called Rachel at the time, and I decided to tell her a secret. Over PC instant messaging. I asked her to keep it a secret, and she agreed… in a room full of other “friends” who could see the monitor, as it later turned out. I told her that I thought I might be in love with Grendel, and I don’t exactly remember her response at the time, but I soon found out that she was totally full of shit when she promised to keep it a secret. My point is, I was drunk when this conversation happened and I, as is almost always the case, was at the time overthinking the relationship between Grendel and I. We liked a lot of the same things, we hung out a lot as normal 15-year-old dudes. I never once looked at him in a sexual way, but I was a confused teenager and I was drunk. I said what I thought was appropriate at the time, and it bit me in the ass. So to speak.
That was a long time ago, so I don’t mind bringing it up. I seriously doubt that anyone reading this was there or will remember. But the point is that not much has changed insofar as when I drink, I say things I shouldn’t. I’m sure there’s an old adage about that that I could quote, but I’m drunk so I don’t remember it. Regardless, the reason why I recently abandoned Twitter is closely related to this. As is why I try to shy away from the internet whenever I’m drunk, other than to watch Taylor Swift music videos and read Cracked.com articles that I won’t remember reading, and occasionally write a blog post.
Something that I started doing in the last three months or so is calling people on the phone, or messaging them on Facebook, when I’ve been drinking. I know it sounds awful already, but the thing is I never call to talk nasty to or about anyone… I’m just lonely and want someone to talk to. But what’s weird about that, at least to me, is that I get lonely all the time… so why do I only ever want to talk to someone when I’ve been drinking? And I don’t have the answer, I just think it’s odd. Especially considering that when I talk to people while drunk, I never want to talk about my problems… I just want to have a conversation. I cringe when they ask me what’s wrong – I’d rather not discuss it because in the moment, nothing is wrong, I just want to talk. But when I’m sober, and things are most bothering me, I don’t want to talk to anyone. Though I should point out that I have NO problem talking to my counsellor while sober, and I’ll tell her anything… in fact if I ever went to see her while drunk I would feel the exact opposite. Isn’t that strange? I don’t know, but I think so.
I recently had a conversation with a man at Lifeline which lasted around 45 minutes (even though their normal limit is 15-30) which had absolutely nothing to do with anxiety or depression or alcoholism except for the first five minutes where I told him I didn’t want to talk about those things. A man I’ve never met, and probably never will meet again, and in minutes I found something to talk about for forty-fucking-minutes with him. While I was drunk. Had I been sober, that conversation wouldn’t have lasted the first five, I think.
I guess the point of this post is… alcohol really opens me up to people, so, I guess, how do I capture that feeling… without alcohol?
drowning dry 